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Alexander S. Williams
3/15/18
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A.S. Williams DESIGN OF A LOW-COST OPEN-
SOURCE UNDERWATER GLIDER
OSUG is comprised of seven subassemblies, including 1.) screw stepper. Use of a stepper-driven piston-based system
the hull, 2.) external ballasts, 3.) a buoyancy engine, 4.) allows the glider to take in and expel precise amounts of
hydrofoils 5.) the roll-control subassembly, 6.) the pitch- water without complicated feedback systems associated
control subassembly, and 7.) control system. All subsystems with a pump. When the stepper pulls the syringes’ plunger
are fully-modular to make manufacturing efficient and shafts, a vacuum is created, and water is drawn in through
replacement trivial. All other subassemblies connect to the the leading-edge nose cone, thus making OSUG denser than
hull via leading and trailing-edge friction-fit end-caps. the surrounding water, causing descent; when the stepper
pushes the syringes’ plunger shafts, the glider expels water,
The core of OSUG a hull made of a commercially-available, causing it to gain buoyancy and ascend. The buoyancy
pressure-resistant 4.5” outer-diameter 4” inner-diameter engine has been cycle-tested to operate effectively to
acrylic tube, into which all modular assemblies are inserted. approximately 250 hours, after which the syringes need to
To seal off the hull from the environment, two be replaced.
commercially-available glider end caps from Blue
Robotics8 were utilized. These end caps are low-cost and
designed to have additional subassemblies attached to them.
planetary gear set’s output shaft attaches to the rear of and Previous designs used the ATMEGA328P microcontroller;
rotates the entire pitch-control subassembly. Thus, OSUG testing showed that more sophisticated control was required
can modify roll by rotating its center-of-mass and therefore and that the greater amount of flash memory of a
turn when gliding. ATMEGA2560 was essential (256kB vs 32kB). A greater
number of Universal Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter
(UART) ports allows for the expansion of the sensor array
to include Conductivity-Temperature-Depth (CTD)
sensors.
The control board is also designed such that it can be used 13.2mm high, ensuring a good connection between the two
as a slave board in conjunction with a Pixhawk 2.1 to assemblies with a variety of separation distances that arise
control OSUG. In addition to the open-source ArduPilot due to dimension tolerances. Previous versions of this
UAV autopilot, the Pixhawk uses a high-reliability Global connection system used pogo pins, however these provided
Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) for autonomous a force repelling the two assemblies, reducing reliability.
waypoint navigation. Pogo pins also only have a 3mm pin travel distance, which
was insufficient to deal with the variances in distance
The board was developed in the circuit board design between assemblies.
software, Autodesk EAGLE, as a two-layer board. Trace
widths were a default of 16mils for signal traces. The width
of traces used for power delivery were calculated using PCB
Toolkit V7.05, with a copper weight of 1oz and an allowed
temperature rise of 15OC. All components were Surface
Mount Device (SMD) variants, to reduce surface board-size
and cost. Through-hole headers were used for greater
structural strength.
Section III
Fig 6. Schematic and board view of OSUG’s control
board within EAGLE Future developments of OSUG
Notably, the assemblies connected to the leading-edge end- The mechanical and electrical design of OSUG has been
cap and the assemblies connected to the trailing-end edge outlined, additional software efforts are still in development
cap must be electronically-connected. To achieve this, there – especially with integration with the Pixhawk autopilot
are 14 Harwin 1mm through-PCB connectors, allowing for suite. While the implementation is possible on current
a current limit of 10A per connector. The terminal pins are
4
A.S. Williams DESIGN OF A LOW-COST OPEN-
SOURCE UNDERWATER GLIDER
hardware, further software development is required to [9] D. C. Webb, P. J. Simonetti and C. P. Jones, “SLOCUM: An
achieve full autonomy. Underwater Glider Propelled by Environmental Energy”, IEEE
Journal of Oceanic Engineering, vol. 26, No. 4, 2001 pp. 447-
452
In the next version of OSUG, internal mechanisms will be [10] N. Mahmoudian and C. Woolsey, “Underwater Glider Motion
simplified to enable commercialization (while keeping the Control”, 47th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, 2008
OSUG open-source), increase reliability and cost optimize. [11] W. Zihao, L. Ye, W. Aobo and Wang Xiaobing, “Flying Wing
Underwater Glider: Design, Analysis, and Performance
The current buoyancy engine system consists of six 60ml Prediction”, 2015 International Conference on Control,
medical syringes which results in limited durability of the Automation and Robotics
buoyancy engine. Currently, a new buoyancy engine with a [12] J Zyren and A Petrick, “Tutorial on Basic Link Budget
single custom-built piston is in development. Analysis”, intersil, AN9804.1, 1998
[13] International Electrotechnical Commission, “Secondary cells and
batteries containing alkaline or other non-acid electrolytes –
Currently OSUG can reliably descend and ascend Safety requirements for portable sealed secondary cells, and for
underwater, however future collaborations are to integrate batteries made from them, for use in portable applications.
standardized sensor suites. CTD sensors are of importance Lithium systems”, BS EN 62133-2:2017, 2017
in underwater data monitoring missions for geophysical or [14] InvenSense “MPU-6000 and MPU-6050 Product Specification
Revision 3.4”, 2013
oceanographic research, for instance, to form [15] A. L. Gordon and W. F. Haxby, “Agulhas Eddies Invade the
understandings of species and nutrient distribution or can be South Atlantic: Evidence From Geosat Altimeter and Shipboard
used to determine other characteristics of underwater Conductivity-Temperature-Depth Survey” Journal of
conditions. Geophysical Research, vol. 95, No. 3, pp. 3117-3125, 1990
[16] K. Hayley, L. R. Bentley, M. Gharibi and M Nightingale, “Low
temperature dependence of electrical resistivity: Implications for
OSUG has reduced the high barrier of entry for long near surface geophysical monitoring” Geophysical Research
distance underwater data collection set by commercial Letters, vol. 34, 2007
systems. Continued development will enable far more
climate science to be conducted by both hobbyist and
private research groups. Given the open-source
development, as more developers adopt the platform there
will be a proliferation of varied capabilities.
References